The Two Tiny House Books on our Coffeetable.

During the research phase for this project, we dug through countless websites to find other tiny house builders and dwellers that we could use as potential film subjects. We searched Tiny House Blog and Tiny House Design, and Tiny House Talk and good old Google and have been so grateful for the wealth of info available at our fingertips.

But still, there’s nothing quite like a print-and-paper book.

TINY HOMES: Simple Shelter by Lloyd Kahn

Lloyd Kahn sent us a copy of his “Tiny Homes; Simple Shelter” just after Christmas. At this point, Christopher and I were both feeling a bit exhausted by our Kickstarter campaign, work on the house, and a few back-to-back filming trips. Lloyd’s oversized, picture-heavy book delivered the just the inspirational kick that we needed.

“Woah, cool!” we both found ourselves exclaiming, separately, on different occasions, stationed on the couch under a pile of blankets while it snowed outside. Right. This was why we were making this film to begin with: because there are creative, pro-active, DIY geniuses out there who are redefining the way we live and build and inhabit our homes.

So thank you, Lloyd, for featuring some of the most interesting and inspiring small homes that you’ve come across in your long career of re-thinking shelter.

Humble Homes; Simple Shacks by Derek Diedricksen

Deek Diedricksen gave use a copy of his book, “Humble Homes; Simple Shacks,” when we visited him in Massachusetts earlier this Fall. It’s an older version, spiral bound with a black-and-white cover (the new, color cover is above), and it perfectly captures the creativity and DIY feel of the tiny house movement.

Filled with cartoons and sketches of micro-architecture schemes, reading Deek’s book is like being inside of Deek’s mind, which turns out to be quite fun. I mean, who wouldn’t want to spend time dreaming up adult-sized forts and hideouts, and then actually setting about making them into reality? The book also includes some thoughts and plans from Deek’s work-in-progress cabin in Vermont.

Long story short: if you or someone you know (especially a young creative fort-obsessed aspiring architect-builder) is interested in small spaces, we highly suggest both of these reads. They’re equally easy to get absorbed into one page at a time, and fun to look at no matter how long they’ve been sitting on the coffeetable.